Microsoft yesterday updated its Windows Live versions of Hotmail and Maps, in its latest attempt to appear relevant in the online world.
The proprietary software giant hasn’t rolled out the tweaks made to Hotmail to everyone yet. Most peeps will have to wait a few more weeks, but a few lucky non-Googlemail individuals can …

Updated?

Microsoft: Getting it wrong again

So they're taking out email, photo-editing and movie-making apps in Windows 7 and putting them online in an effort to out-Google Google (I'd like to see an AJAX movie-making app), and at the same time advertising Windows to be as good as OS X.

One of the selling points of OS X is the iLife suite. What will you get when you turn on Windows 7? Notepad. Possibly.

Spam

There would be a very easy way to make hotmail relevant again: include a decent spam filter. I have a hotmail and a gmail account. Both receive a large amount of spam. With hotmail, 90% of that spam ends up in my inbox where I have to delete it. With gmail, 90% of it ends up in the 'spam' folder where it belongs.

Now what are the chances that this new flashy hotmail incarnation include a decent spam filter? More likely, it's full of unnecessary web 2.0 widgets that make it look swish and polished rather than useful.

Increasingly irrelevant!

All MS seem to achieve with their "updates" to Hotmail is to break bits of it. It's getting to the stage of not being good value for money despite being free. Got to go - need to set a forwarding address, a permanent vacation reply and reply to address in preparation for the next "update".

Bring back XP for respect

Until then, get used to being ignored.

As a .NET developer, I'm fine with the development tools. Server OSs are fine.

But desktop OS? Web content? Not interested. I'm concentrating on keeping my XP Media Center up and running, and visiting websites that don't change every 6 months because a new manager decides its time for a new direction.

Out of date

One up to MS?

Out in the midst of nowhere, (Shropshire actually), Google maps have my estate in 1999, and until very recently couldn't even be bothered with the same image resolution as the rest of the country gets.

At least Live maps show 2006, which is about as up to date as anything Microsoft puts out.

Microsoft spam

My hotmail inbox is filled with MS spam propaganda, like "new Live Spaces", "new Windows Live" et cetera. I use it only for MSN, and I don't give it anywhere, but it keeps getting this stupid Microsoft spam.

MS Map of Myanmar better than Google's

Lots more place names. If you're trying to work out the route of one of Frank Kingdon-Ward's plant hunting treks, MS's map is more useful than Google's.

Indeed, that's a great failing of Google Maps: the labelling of geographic features (e.g. mountain peaks) is poor to nonexistent, and the marking of watercourses so inconsistent as to be useless. Try working out the exact path of the Irradwaddy River, for example.

Or go to Oregon and note that the Illinois River which sweeps around the foot of Eight Dollar Mountain is unmarked on the terrain view. Useless!